Movies with Cray Supercomputers?
1Shot1Kill
on? Any help would be nice.
William
Charlie Gibbs
doubletap...@yahoo.com (1Shot1Kill) writes:
>I was wondering in which movies have the Cray Computers made Cameos
>on? Any help would be nice.
I seem to recall that "The Last Starfighter"'s production schedule
was helped by an upgrade to a Y-MP partway through.
--
cgi...@sky.bus.com (Charlie Gibbs)
Remove the first period after the "at" sign to reply.
I don't read top-posted messages. If you want me to see your reply,
appropriately trim the quoted text and put your reply below it.
Don Chiasson
"Charlie Gibbs" <cgi...@sky.bus.com> wrote in message
news:557.734T23...@sky.bus.com...
> In article <24a5ad4e.01113...@posting.google.com>
> doubletap...@yahoo.com (1Shot1Kill) writes:
>
> >I was wondering in which movies have the Cray Computers made Cameos
> >on? Any help would be nice.
>
> I seem to recall that "The Last Starfighter"'s production schedule
> was helped by an upgrade to a Y-MP partway through.
>
Don
e-mail: it's not not, it's hot.
jrla...@shell.golden.net
1Shot1Kill <doubletap...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>I was wondering in which movies have the Cray Computers made Cameos
>on? Any help would be nice.
Wasn't there one in "Sneakers" with Robert Redford from back a few years?
--
john R. Latala
jrla...@golden.net
jrla...@shell.golden.net
>In article <24a5ad4e.01113...@posting.google.com>,
>1Shot1Kill <doubletap...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>I was wondering in which movies have the Cray Computers made Cameos
>>on? Any help would be nice.
>
>Wasn't there one in "Sneakers" with Robert Redford from back a few years?
Does anybody know what the actual model was? If it's any help the movie
was out in 1992.
I got to thinking about what other real computer hardware has been seen up
on the big scree. I remember a movie called "Improper Channels" starring
Alan Arkin and Marietta Hartley (sp?) of Polaroid camera commercial fame.
There's a scene in there where Alan's character is in a computer room with
access to a CDC mainframe.
When I crossed the topic "computers in movies" with that long thread in
this newsgroup on DECtapes it brought back a memory. In the movie "Three
Days of the Condor" (1975) with Robert Redford (again) I distinctly
remember a scene where either his character, or someone his character is
talking to, either mounts or unmounts a DECtape. Am I remembering
correctly?
Just had another thought ... what were the workstations that ran the
amusement park in "Jurrasic Park"? I remember the young girl saying
something like, "Hey! This is Unix! I know this!" or something like that.
I don't think they were Sun's. SGI's? Anyway I'm pretty sure they were
running X-Windows.
Bill Marcum
Don Chiasson wrote in message
<2rVN7.193237$5h5.86...@news3.rdc2.on.home.com>...
that movie).
GerardS
|> Don wrote:
|> Charlie Gibbs wrote:
|>> 1Shot1Kill wrotes:
|>> >I was wondering in which movies have the Cray Computers made Cameos
|>> >on? Any help would be nice.
|>>
|>> I seem to recall that "The Last Starfighter"'s production schedule
|>> was helped by an upgrade to a Y-MP partway through.
|>>
|> Isn't that a Cray in Sneakers?
|>
| "The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes"? (I don't think a Cray was involved in
| that movie).
pardon my spelling, and others. Yes, it was a Cray, but it was just used
as a bench for Ben.
Gerard S.
Gerhard Lenerz
> They were SGI machines. You could even download the 3D file
> manager from SGI's web site.
It's still there:
http://www.sgi.com/fun/freeware/3d_navigator.html
Looks like *the* perfect admin tool^Wtoy... ;-)
Gerhard
Eugene Miya
>In article <9u9ed7$du$1...@shell.golden.net>, <jrla...@shell.golden.net> wrote:
>>In article <24a5ad4e.01113...@posting.google.com>,
>>1Shot1Kill <doubletap...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>I was wondering in which movies have the Cray Computers made Cameos
>>>on? Any help would be nice.
>>Wasn't there one in "Sneakers" with Robert Redford from back a few years?
>
>Does anybody know what the actual model was? If it's any help the movie
>was out in 1992.
I've heard that, but it's not shaped like any model which I am aware of.
I'll bet that it was a prop and not even a real machine.
Benches were dropped as shapes between 1984-1990 depending on model lines.
Len Adleman, the technical consultant (the A in RSA) was reasonable on
the crypto just not the architecture.
>When I crossed the topic "computers in movies" with that long thread in
>this newsgroup on DECtapes it brought back a memory. In the movie "Three
>Days of the Condor" (1975) with Robert Redford (again) I distinctly
>remember a scene where either his character, or someone his character is
>talking to, either mounts or unmounts a DECtape. Am I remembering
>correctly?
No, you got that correct. The woman was supposed to be Redford's
girlfriend (Janice).
John Francis
>In article <9u9ed7$du$1...@shell.golden.net>, <jrla...@shell.golden.net> wrote:
>>In article <24a5ad4e.01113...@posting.google.com>,
>>1Shot1Kill <doubletap...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>I was wondering in which movies have the Cray Computers made Cameos
>>>on? Any help would be nice.
>>
>>Wasn't there one in "Sneakers" with Robert Redford from back a few years?
>
>Does anybody know what the actual model was? If it's any help the movie
>was out in 1992.
The most obvious part, the circular bench unit that the characters sat on,
was from a Cray-2. But I don't think the rest of the computer was from
any real machine - just a set of Hollywood props.
>I got to thinking about what other real computer hardware has been seen up
>on the big screen.
>
>When I crossed the topic "computers in movies" with that long thread in
>this newsgroup on DECtapes it brought back a memory. In the movie "Three
>Days of the Condor" (1975) with Robert Redford (again) I distinctly
>remember a scene where either his character, or someone his character is
>talking to, either mounts or unmounts a DECtape. Am I remembering
>correctly?
A PDP-8 plays a prominent part (for a computer) in that movie.
I'm pretty sure DEC had some promotional posters made featuring this.
>Just had another thought ... what were the workstations that ran the
>amusement park in "Jurrasic Park"? I remember the young girl saying
>something like, "Hey! This is Unix! I know this!" or something like that.
>I don't think they were Sun's. SGI's? Anyway I'm pretty sure they were
>running X-Windows.
SGIs, running an SGI visual shell interface.
Tramm Hudson
<jrla...@shell.golden.net> wrote:
> > 1Shot1Kill <doubletap...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > I was wondering in which movies have the Cray Computers made Cameos
> > on? Any help would be nice.
>
> Just had another thought ... what were the workstations that ran the
> amusement park in "Jurrasic Park"?
The supercomputers in the background of the movie "Jurrasic Park"
were CM-5's, but the book cast Cray ?-MP's in the role. The rumor
at the time was that Cray did not want their hardware used if it
portrayed their systems in any negative way. Sort of like the
Reeses Pieces instead of M&M candy in "E.T."[1].
I'm having trouble finding any supporting evidence. RISKS 15.01
discussed the choice of CM-5[2]:
Phil Agre wrote:
# The same WSJ (page B1) reports that Steven Spielberg's production company
# chose the Thinking Machines CM-5 for "Jurassic Park" (in which, of course,
# it ran some poorly designed software) because it "looked the least like a
# science-fiction machine".
Trammell
1: I can't find this either, but haven't tried.
2: http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/15.01.html#subj4
--
o hud...@swcp.com Trammel...@celera.com O___|
/|\ http://www.swcp.com/~hudson/ H 240.476.1373 /\ \_
<< KC5RNF W 240.453.3317 \ \/\_\
0 U \_ |
jrla...@shell.golden.net
What's the no for? The scene didn't happen or it had nothing to do with
DECish hardware. As I typed this something just clicked. I think the scene
is just after Redford's character goes to get coffee or such. Because it's
raining he uses a shortcut so he's not seen leaving. Right after he leaves
the assassin shows us. The girl's doing something with some DECish
hardware and the assassin asks her to step away from it so she isn't lined
up with the window.
Brian Boutel
> Just had another thought ... what were the workstations that ran the
> amusement park in "Jurrasic Park"? I remember the young girl saying
> something like, "Hey! This is Unix! I know this!" or something like that.
> I don't think they were Sun's. SGI's? Anyway I'm pretty sure they were
> running X-Windows.
Behind them, at the rear of the room, was a Thinking Machines CM5 -
distinctive matt black cabinets with a rectanglar array of red LEDs on
one of the narrow sides.
I saw the movie in Los Alamos on the same day that I saw the Lab's real
CM5. The approval of my DOE security plan for that visit was delayed
(the problems of being an uncleared foreign national :-( ) so I nearly
missed out on seeing the real one.
Quite an impressive machine for 1991, the CM5. That one had 1024
processors (Sparcs) each with 32MB, and they were going to install
vector hardware as well.
--brian
Simon Lyall
>I was wondering in which movies have the Cray Computers made Cameos
>on? Any help would be nice.
I can't find my copy of the book but I seem to remember a bit in Wargames,
Mathew Brodrick's character is arriving in Norad and says something like:
"Hey, thats a Cray-3, I didn't think they were out yet"
which gets a smug reply from one of the people there.
I am not 100% sure on the quote though.
--
Simon J. Lyall | Very Busy | Web: http://www.darkmere.gen.nz/
"Inside me Im Screaming, Nobody pays any attention." | eMT.
Failed Advertising Slogan #1 : "Inland Revenue, it's our job to be feared"
Larry Anderson
I do think in the movie a Cray looking cabinet was in the main computer
room outside the WOPR.
--
01000011 01001111 01001101 01001101 01001111 01000100 01001111 01010010 01000101
Larry Anderson - Sysop of Silicon Realms BBS (209) 754-1363
300-14.4k bps
Set your 8-bit C= rigs to sail for http://www.portcommodore.com/
01000011 01001111 01001101 01010000 01010101 01010100 01000101 01010010 01010011
John Carlyle-Clarke
news:9u9r55$30m$1...@shell.golden.net:
> In article <9u9ed7$du$1...@shell.golden.net>,
> <jrla...@shell.golden.net> wrote:
>>In article <24a5ad4e.01113...@posting.google.com>,
>>1Shot1Kill <doubletap...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>>I was wondering in which movies have the Cray Computers made
>>>Cameos on? Any help would be nice.
>>
>>Wasn't there one in "Sneakers" with Robert Redford from back a few
>>years?
>
[snip]
>
> I got to thinking about what other real computer hardware has been
> seen up on the big scree.
[snip]
I rented the film "The Dish" this weekend (not a bad film in a low-key
sort of way) that featured, IIRC, a PDP-9 [1] quite prominently. One
of the dish crew says how the computer can do in a few minutes what
used to take him hours with a slide rule. The computer is actually in
the credits [2]. It was supplied by a company called something like
"Historic Computer Know-how pty." (can't remember the exact name,
sorry).
[1] Could be wrong on the model number - I am no DEC expert, sorry.
[2] This prompted a conversation with my wife that went something like
this:
(As credits roll..)
ME: Ah! Thought those colours looked like DEC colours.
WIFE: You were watching the credits to see what the computer was,
weren't you?
ME: Er...yep.
WIFE: Can I get a divorce now?
Brian Inglis
IIRC a PDP-9 was in the credits for "The Dish": about Parkes,
NSW, Oz radio observatory's role in Apollo 11 moon landing.
Thanks. Take care, Brian Inglis Calgary, Alberta, Canada
--
Brian....@CSi.com (Brian dot Inglis at SystematicSw dot ab dot ca)
fake address use address above to reply
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spam traps
Eugene Miya
John Francis <jo...@panix.com> wrote:
>The most obvious part, the circular bench unit that the characters sat on,
>was from a Cray-2. But I don't think the rest of the computer was from
>any real machine - just a set of Hollywood props.
Small typo John.
Cray-1.
CRI got rid of the seats on the 2.
The 2 was more of a wet bar than a couch.
That's why all of them had windows.
Far fewer of them than 1s or Xs or Ys.
Eugene Miya
Larry Anderson <foxn...@bigvalley.net> wrote:
>I do think in the movie a Cray looking cabinet was in the main computer
What's a Cray looking cabinet?
>room outside the WOPR.
Eugene Miya
Simon Lyall <si...@darkmere.gen.nz> wrote:
>I can't find my copy of the book but I seem to remember a bit in Wargames,
>"Hey, thats a Cray-3, I didn't think they were out yet"
>which gets a smug reply from one of the people there.
>
>I am not 100% sure on the quote though.
One of the guys who wrote the screen play lived in Palo Alto for a while.
I probably need to rerent the film to catch details again.
The 3 didn't exist (never existed in full form) until years after
the film. The military rarely (especially in the operational sense)
get hardware advanced as this until it after some other client cut their
teeth on it.
The best thing about Wargames as a film is to see if people observe
details of the war dialer. Older, nonobservant people see magic,
younger computer savvy people just see sequential search.
Eugene Miya
>In article <3c091432$1...@news.ucsc.edu>, Eugene Miya <eug...@cse.ucsc.edu> wrote:
>>In article <9u9r55$30m$1...@shell.golden.net>, <jrla...@shell.golden.net> wrote:
>>
>>>When I crossed the topic "computers in movies" with that long thread in
>>>this newsgroup on DECtapes it brought back a memory. In the movie "Three
>>>Days of the Condor" (1975) with Robert Redford (again) I distinctly
>>>remember a scene where either his character, or someone his character is
>>>talking to, either mounts or unmounts a DECtape. Am I remembering
>>>correctly?
>>
>>No, you got that correct. The woman was supposed to be Redford's
>>girlfriend (Janice).
>
>What's the no for? The scene didn't happen or it had nothing to do with
>DECish hardware. As I typed this something just clicked. I think the scene
>is just after Redford's character goes to get coffee or such. Because it's
>raining he uses a shortcut so he's not seen leaving. Right after he leaves
>hardware and the assassin asks her to step away from it so she isn't lined
>up with the window.
It was a No of affirmation.
You got that right.
I have a copy of the film. I used to own the original book (Five Days
of the Condor by Grady).
The DEC hardware is just a prop.
It's Redford's character's turn to get every one lunch.
He uses the emergency escape route to avoid getting wet in the rain
(he also ACKs weather knowledge).
She is handling DECtapes.
Eugene Miya
Brian Boutel <br...@boutel.co.nz> wrote:
>> Jurassic Park
>
>Behind them, at the rear of the room, was a Thinking Machines CM5 -
>distinctive matt black cabinets with a rectanglar array of red LEDs on
>one of the narrow sides.
>
>I saw the movie in Los Alamos on the same day that I saw the Lab's real
>CM5. The approval of my DOE security plan for that visit was delayed
>(the problems of being an uncleared foreign national :-( ) so I nearly
>missed out on seeing the real one.
>
>Quite an impressive machine for 1991, the CM5. That one had 1024
>processors (Sparcs) each with 32MB, and they were going to install
>vector hardware as well.
The architecture was just raised yet again in c.p.
While it had lots of blinken lights, not much ever came of it.
You didn't miss much.
Tim McCaffrey
doubletap...@yahoo.com says...
>
>I was wondering in which movies have the Cray Computers made Cameos
>on? Any help would be nice.
>
"Remo Williams: The adventure begins". (They weren't called Crays, but they
sure looked like them).
Hmm, they may have also appeared in "Brain Storm" (Natalie Wood's last movie).
A CDC (or was it ETA?) mainframe was nicely shot up in "Die Hard".
- Tim
Charles Richmond
> [snip...] [snip...] [snip...]
>
> (As credits roll..)
> ME: Ah! Thought those colours looked like DEC colours.
> WIFE: You were watching the credits to see what the computer was,
> weren't you?
> ME: Er...yep.
> WIFE: Can I get a divorce now?
>
reminds me of the movie "The Ghost in the Machine". I really like
the beginning titles and credits, but the movie itself is a bit
wretched. (In most guide books, it gets only one star...) It did
have Karen Allen in it though (from "Raiders of the Lost Ark"
and "Starman" fame).
--
+-------------------------------------------------------------+
| Charles and Francis Richmond <rich...@plano.net> |
+-------------------------------------------------------------+
Jim Esler
> I have a copy of the film. I used to own the original book (Five Days
> of the Condor by Grady).
Amazon lists "Three Days of the Condor" and "Six Days of the Condor". Is
yours a missing volume in the series?
--
Jim Esler
John Savard
in part:
>The DEC hardware is just a prop.
I remember seeing scrolling past on a monitor - I think on
"Futureworld", at least it was on one of the sequels to "Westworld" -
PDP-8 Assembly Language!
No wonder those robots went wild, they were woefully underpowered!
Charlie Gibbs
jsa...@ecn.aSBLOKb.caNADA.invalid (John Savard) writes:
>I remember seeing scrolling past on a monitor - I think on
>"Futureworld", at least it was on one of the sequels to "Westworld" -
>PDP-8 Assembly Language!
>
>No wonder those robots went wild, they were woefully underpowered!
Thread drift time! What other instances of recognizable source
code have people seen in movies or on TV? There was the 6502
assembly language running in the Terminator. And I saw source
code go flashing by in a Max Headroom episode. My VCR has a
rock-solid freeze frame and single step, so I was able to go
back and read it - it was C code to convert a string to an integer.
To drift still further, does anyone else remember seeing COMMAND.COM
when they first booted up Robocop? Poor guy - no wonder he had
problems.
Pete Fenelon
> Thread drift time! What other instances of recognizable source
> code have people seen in movies or on TV? There was the 6502
> assembly language running in the Terminator.
I was still doing enough 6502 at the time to recognise that it was
6809... :)
pete
Heinz W. Wiggeshoff
>
> Thread drift time! What other instances of recognizable source
> code have people seen in movies or on TV?
If memory serves me correctly, L. Wheeler posted to that effect
in recent years. Unfortunately, memory doesn't serve the details.
Eugene Miya
There were two firms for this ambiguous phrase. Cray Research, Inc was
the better know company. Cray Computer Corp. was Seymour's next to last
company. Cray Computer refers to the firm and the Cray-3 and Cray-4
not counting "special" projects. Cray computers (smaller c) can
refer to any of the machines Seymour worked on at CCC, CRI, CDC, Univac, ERA.
In article <9ugnkn$32d$1...@trsvr.tr.unisys.com>,
Tim McCaffrey <t...@spamfilter.asns.tr.unisys.com> wrote:
>"Remo Williams: The adventure begins". (They weren't called Crays, but they
>sure looked like them).
What do *you* think a Cray looks like?
>Hmm, they may have also appeared in "Brain Storm" (Natalie Wood's last movie).
Where?
>A CDC (or was it ETA?) mainframe was nicely shot up in "Die Hard".
ETA. Got a couple of cryostats from JvNC.
The bubble top was stupid.
Eugene Miya
John Savard <jsa...@ecn.aSBLOKb.caNADA.invalid> wrote:
>On 3 Dec 2001 10:12:38 -0800, eug...@cse.ucsc.edu (Eugene Miya) wrote,
>in part:
>>The DEC hardware is just a prop.
>
>I remember seeing scrolling past on a monitor - I think on
>"Futureworld", at least it was on one of the sequels to "Westworld" -
>PDP-8 Assembly Language!
>
>No wonder those robots went wild, they were woefully underpowered!
I never really saw much of those *world films.
This is like the usual Terminator threads about what actually does
scroll by as Arnold tells the guy to "F*L off" on his menu system.
Eugene Miya
It's probably Six. I've not bothered to look at it in years.
The ending is completely different from film.
On my first visit to the CIA HQ bulding, I was taken through the library.
It's nice and big, but it's not very technical (they have to use interlibrary
loan to DC local universities for technical books). So when I was asked to
suggest a book they might have, Grady's book was the only one that I could
think of (which they had of course). It occured to me later to donate a copy
of the script summaries of Mission Impossible (this was years before the
movie). They turned down my offering. However, the guys at the Fort, took it.
Eugene Miya
Charlie Gibbs <cgi...@sky.bus.com> wrote:
>To drift still further, does anyone else remember seeing COMMAND.COM
>when they first booted up Robocop? Poor guy - no wonder he had problems.
I made an kept a copy of the second films additional directives as an
example of too many goals and mixed messages:
DIRECTIVE 233: RESTRAIN HOSTILE FEELINGS.
DIRECTIVE 234: PROMOTE POSITIVE ATTITUDES.
DIRECTIVE 235: SUPPRESS AGGRESSIVE EMOTIONS.
DIRECTIVE 236: PROMOTE SOCIAL VALUES.
DIRECTIVE 237: ENCOURAGE ENVIRONMENTAL CONSCIOUSNESS.
DIRECTIVE 238: AVOID DESTRUCTIVE BEHAVIOR.
DIRECTIVE 239: BE ACCESSIBLE TO THE PUBLIC.
DIRECTIVE 240: PARTICIPATE IN GROUP ACTIVITIES.
DIRECTIVE 241: AVOID INTERPERSONAL CONFLICTS.
Makes me wonder about the featuritis of NT.
Also shows the value of RISCs.
Larry Jones
I'm still hoping to see Malcolm I through IX some day.
-Larry Jones
In my opinion, we don't devote nearly enough scientific research
to finding a cure for jerks. -- Calvin
Larry Jones
No, no, no, no, yes!
(Two points to the first person to get the reference.)
-Larry Jones
I don't need to improve! Everyone ELSE does! -- Calvin
Geoff McCaughan
> Thread drift time! What other instances of recognizable source
> code have people seen in movies or on TV? There was the 6502
> assembly language running in the Terminator. And I saw source
> code go flashing by in a Max Headroom episode. My VCR has a
> rock-solid freeze frame and single step, so I was able to go
> back and read it - it was C code to convert a string to an integer.
I remember years ago seeing a TV program where someone had supposedly
hacked into a banks financial system in order to intercept a megabucks
wire transfer or something. You got shown a brief shot of the screen
with data scrolling past which was supposed to be a realtime display
of transactions, but it was just an MSDOS directory listing.
Chris Hedley
> I made an kept a copy of the second films additional directives as an
> example of too many goals and mixed messages:
>
> DIRECTIVE 233: RESTRAIN HOSTILE FEELINGS.
> DIRECTIVE 234: PROMOTE POSITIVE ATTITUDES.
> DIRECTIVE 235: SUPPRESS AGGRESSIVE EMOTIONS.
> DIRECTIVE 236: PROMOTE SOCIAL VALUES.
> DIRECTIVE 237: ENCOURAGE ENVIRONMENTAL CONSCIOUSNESS.
> DIRECTIVE 238: AVOID DESTRUCTIVE BEHAVIOR.
> DIRECTIVE 239: BE ACCESSIBLE TO THE PUBLIC.
> DIRECTIVE 240: PARTICIPATE IN GROUP ACTIVITIES.
> DIRECTIVE 241: AVOID INTERPERSONAL CONFLICTS.
>
> Makes me wonder about the featuritis of NT.
> Also shows the value of RISCs.
I'm not entirely sure why, but this very scene always comes to mind
whenever I see an explanation of how RDRAM is supposed to work.
Chris.
Chris Hedley
> scroll by as Arnold tells the guy to "F*L off" on his menu system.
My memory (which is prone to corruption, data loss and wild flights
of fantasy) recalls that it did actually suggest the exact words as
spoken by him: "fuck you asshole." I *think* that's right, but I'm
not going to stake my life on it!
Chris.
John Francis
Larry Jones <larry...@sdrc.com> wrote:
>Eugene Miya (eug...@cse.ucsc.edu) wrote:
>>
>> It was a No of affirmation.
>
>No, no, no, no, yes!
>(Two points to the first person to get the reference.)
"Vicar of Dibley" ?
Anne & Lynn Wheeler
>
> I remember years ago seeing a TV program where someone had supposedly
> hacked into a banks financial system in order to intercept a megabucks
> wire transfer or something. You got shown a brief shot of the screen
> with data scrolling past which was supposed to be a realtime display
> of transactions, but it was just an MSDOS directory listing.
>
not quite source code .... but vm/370 loadmap. it was filler/short
that I saw in a theater in downtown madrid that was made out at the
university. A lot of the movie was shot in a room that had a whole
bank of TVs covering one wall ... they were all scrolling some text at
(about) 1200 .... which turned out to be a vm/370 loadmap.
random refs:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000.html#14 Computer of the century
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2000g.html#36 stupid user stories
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2001e.html#66 line length (was Re: Babble from "JD" <dy...@jdyson.com>)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/99.html#9 IBM S/360
--
Anne & Lynn Wheeler | ly...@garlic.com - http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/
Chris Baird
>> have people seen in movies or on TV? There was the 6502 assembly
>> language running in the Terminator.
Weirdness time: in one episode of the cartoon 'Dragonball Z', Android
16 (a muscle-bound model with a fondness for nature) was being
repaired and the engineers discovered all the GWBASIC code that made
it want to kill Goku (the good guy). There was 2-3 screenfulls of
code (with comments!) too.
--
Chris,,
Michael Black
On Tue, 4 Dec 2001, Geoff McCaughan wrote:
>
> I remember years ago seeing a TV program where someone had supposedly
> hacked into a banks financial system in order to intercept a megabucks
> wire transfer or something. You got shown a brief shot of the screen
> with data scrolling past which was supposed to be a realtime display
> of transactions, but it was just an MSDOS directory listing.
>
>
Your mention of TV reminds me that there was once a tv program
that might be considered a branch off Wargames.
It was "Whiz Kids" and apparently ran for six months starting
in October 1983. The characters were introduced in "Simon & Simon"
and then they went to their own show. It was about a teenage
"computer genius" and his friends, and while I no longer have a strong
memory of the episodes I saw, they seemed to solve crimes, using
their home computer. The timing would seem to be to take advantage
of the Wargames hype, though perhaps it was just the general awareness
that kids were playing with small computers.
Michael
Charles Richmond
>
> In article <3c0c5624...@news.powersurfr.com>
> jsa...@ecn.aSBLOKb.caNADA.invalid (John Savard) writes:
>
> >I remember seeing scrolling past on a monitor - I think on
> >"Futureworld", at least it was on one of the sequels to "Westworld" -
> >PDP-8 Assembly Language!
> >
> >No wonder those robots went wild, they were woefully underpowered!
>
> Thread drift time! What other instances of recognizable source
> code have people seen in movies or on TV? There was the 6502
> assembly language running in the Terminator. And I saw source
> code go flashing by in a Max Headroom episode. My VCR has a
> rock-solid freeze frame and single step, so I was able to go
> back and read it - it was C code to convert a string to an integer.
>
On one episode, the computer kid (Ritchie) was sitting at the
go-kart track working on some 8080 assembly source listing at
the beginning of the episode.
Charles Richmond
are a couple I do *not* have. IIRC, there were about 13 episodes.
On one episode, A.J. Simon appeared in the "Whiz Kids".
Michael Black
On Wed, 5 Dec 2001, Charles Richmond wrote:
> Michael Black wrote:
> >
> > On Tue, 4 Dec 2001, Geoff McCaughan wrote:
> >
> > >
> > > I remember years ago seeing a TV program where someone had supposedly
> > > hacked into a banks financial system in order to intercept a megabucks
> > > wire transfer or something. You got shown a brief shot of the screen
> > > with data scrolling past which was supposed to be a realtime display
> > > of transactions, but it was just an MSDOS directory listing.
> > >
> > >
> > Your mention of TV reminds me that there was once a tv program
> > that might be considered a branch off Wargames.
> >
> > It was "Whiz Kids" and apparently ran for six months starting
> > in October 1983. The characters were introduced in "Simon & Simon"
> > and then they went to their own show. It was about a teenage
> > "computer genius" and his friends, and while I no longer have a strong
> > memory of the episodes I saw, they seemed to solve crimes, using
> > their home computer. The timing would seem to be to take advantage
> > of the Wargames hype, though perhaps it was just the general awareness
> > that kids were playing with small computers.
> >
> I have most of the "Whiz Kids" episodes on videotape, but there
> are a couple I do *not* have. IIRC, there were about 13 episodes.
> On one episode, A.J. Simon appeared in the "Whiz Kids".
>
It's been so long since the series aired, and I've never
seen them since. I just did a search, and a couple of sites
say there were 18 episodes. Your version seems to be better than
mine; apparently, A.J. was on Whiz Kids, but then the main Whiz Kid
appeared in an episode of Simon & Simon. My strongest memory of
the crossover is that a snippet of the episode was used in
the montage that opened Simon & Simon.
Interestingly, Merl Saunders, who has a Grateful Dead connection,
appeared in both series.
Michael
Martin
>in October 1983. The characters were introduced in "Simon & Simon"
> Michael
My recollection is when the computer they were using broke down and
they had to use a ZX 81 instead.. can't remember modems on them though :)
IIRC it had the 16kb ram pack.
John Carlyle-Clarke
news:9ujksf$g...@nfs0.sdrc.com:
> Eugene Miya (eug...@cse.ucsc.edu) wrote:
>>
>> It was a No of affirmation.
>
> No, no, no, no, yes!
> (Two points to the first person to get the reference.)
>
Tron?
Paul Grayson
> Thread drift time! What other instances of recognizable source
> code have people seen in movies or on TV? There was the 6502
> assembly language running in the Terminator. And I saw source
> code go flashing by in a Max Headroom episode. My VCR has a
> rock-solid freeze frame and single step, so I was able to go
> back and read it - it was C code to convert a string to an integer.
>
> To drift still further, does anyone else remember seeing COMMAND.COM
> when they first booted up Robocop? Poor guy - no wonder he had
> problems.
I'm sure I once saw some of the Linux kernel source on BBC1's Grandstand
(a sports program) when they were doing some football feature, but I
can't recall the full details.
Or maybe I was drunk?
--
Insert quip here.
Ben Harris
>jsa...@ecn.aSBLOKb.caNADA.invalid (John Savard) writes:
>
>>I remember seeing scrolling past on a monitor - I think on
>>"Futureworld", at least it was on one of the sequels to "Westworld" -
>>PDP-8 Assembly Language!
>>
>>No wonder those robots went wild, they were woefully underpowered!
>
>Thread drift time! What other instances of recognizable source
>code have people seen in movies or on TV?
Some of the later Dr Who episodes had a BBC Micro's display in the TARDIS
console, and just before it displayed some pretty graphics, the screen
would often be filled with the BBC BASIC program to draw them.
--
Ben Harris
Unix Support, University of Cambridge Computing Service.
If I wanted to speak for the University, I'd be in ucam.comp-serv.announce.
Pete Fenelon
There was a legendary UK documentary on the development of
safety-critical systems about 4-5 years ago - the "safety critical
system" they were showing a listing of was in fact something that
looked very much like news.demon.co.uk's list of newsgroups...
The content of the programme was also about that trite.
pete
Tim McCaffrey
>
>
>What do *you* think a Cray looks like?
>
X/MP was the most known Cray, IIRC).
>>Hmm, they may have also appeared in "Brain Storm" (Natalie Wood's last
movie).
>
>Where?
>
Good question. I'm not sure, I know there were several different computer
room sets (pretty realistic, actually). It just seems like a Cray *should*
have been there, somewhere.
- Tim
Alexandre Pechtchanski
[ Courtesy cc'ed through e-mail to the quoted author ]
>Eugene Miya (eug...@cse.ucsc.edu) wrote:
>>
>> It was a No of affirmation.
>
>No, no, no, no, yes!
>(Two points to the first person to get the reference.)
Stalin's side of the phone talk with Churchill?
--
[ When replying, remove *'s from address ]
Alexandre Pechtchanski, Systems Manager, RUH, NY
Ron Hunsinger
> Thread drift time! What other instances of recognizable source
> code have people seen in movies or on TV?
There was one episode of Dilbert where Wally has to go into the old
COBOL programs still running on the old computer down in the basement,
to effect Y2K repairs.
There is a brief glimpse of source code that flashes on his screen.
Interestingly, it's recognizably C++. The resolution isn't good enough
to tell what the program did, but if I substitute @ for "blurry
lower-case character", it looked vaguely like:
/* ------------------------------------------------------
@@@@ @@ @@@ @@@@@@ @@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@ @@@@@@
@@@@@@@@ @@@@ @ @@@@@@@ @@@@@ @@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@
------------------------------------------------------ */
@@@ @@@@@ (@@@@ @@@, @@@ @@@@)
{
@@@@ @@ @@@@@@@@@;
cout << "@@@@@@@@@@" << @@@@@@@@@ << endl;
@@ = @@@[@@@@] + @@@@@@@@;
@@@@@@@ ( @@@@@@@, @@@@, @@@@@@);
if (@@@@@@@@@@)
{
cout << @@@@@@@ << @@@@@@@@ << endl;
}
else
{
cout << "@@@@@@" << @@@@[@@@@@] << @@@ << endl;
}
}
He must have had a non-standard COBOL compiler to accept such code. Of
course, the running joke about COBOL was "Standards are nice,
especially when you have so many to choose from," but I never saw one
that would accept lowercase. (I hear tell most PC versions do, now.
Ugh. Hurts my brain to even think about it. Not the lowercase. COBOL on
a PC. Why?)
-Ron Hunsinger
Charlie Gibbs
joh...@nospam.europlacer.co.uk (John Carlyle-Clarke) writes:
I keep thinking it sounds like Firesign Theatre, perhaps Uh-Clem's
encounter with Doctor Memory in "I Think We're All Bozos On This Bus".
But that was probably more like:
"No, no, damn!"
"Hoover Dam..."
There was some wild free-associating going on there.
Why does the porridge bird lay its egg in the air?
--
cgi...@sky.bus.com (Charlie Gibbs)
Remove the first period after the "at" sign to reply.
I don't read top-posted messages. If you want me to see your reply,
appropriately trim the quoted text and put your reply below it.
Heinz W. Wiggeshoff
>
...
> course, the running joke about COBOL was "Standards are nice,
> especially when you have so many to choose from," but I never saw one
> that would accept lowercase. (I hear tell most PC versions do, now.
> Ugh. Hurts my brain to even think about it. Not the lowercase. COBOL on
> a PC. Why?)
COBOL on anything revolts me. However, an outfit called MicroFocus
made a whack of cash with their COBOL and /360 assembler PC package.
Once upon a time, I had to convert a late 60's typesetting assembler
program to run on a PC using their product. The company is defunct.
CBFalconer
That won't compile. The function return type is obviously not
void, and the function fails to return anything! :-) Maybe you
are mistaken about the language? The programmer used much too
much vertical space IMNSHO.
--
Chuck F (cbfal...@yahoo.com) (cbfal...@XXXXworldnet.att.net)
Available for consulting/temporary embedded and systems.
(Remove "XXXX" from reply address. yahoo works unmodified)
mailto:u...@ftc.gov (for spambots to harvest)
CBFalconer
>
> On 4 Dec 2001 23:05:51 GMT, scj...@thor.sdrc.com (Larry Jones) wrote:
> [ Courtesy cc'ed through e-mail to the quoted author ]
>
> >Eugene Miya (eug...@cse.ucsc.edu) wrote:
> >>
> >> It was a No of affirmation.
> >
> >No, no, no, no, yes!
> >(Two points to the first person to get the reference.)
>
> Stalin's side of the phone talk with Churchill?
We can attribute at least the first part of the quote to Bill
Clinton.
Charlie Gibbs
(Ron Hunsinger) writes:
>In article <1085.738T...@sky.bus.com>, "Charlie Gibbs"
><cgi...@sky.bus.com> wrote:
>
>> Thread drift time! What other instances of recognizable source
>> code have people seen in movies or on TV?
>
>There was one episode of Dilbert where Wally has to go into the old
>COBOL programs still running on the old computer down in the basement,
>to effect Y2K repairs.
>
>There is a brief glimpse of source code that flashes on his screen.
>Interestingly, it's recognizably C++. The resolution isn't good enough
>to tell what the program did, but if I substitute @ for "blurry
>lower-case character", it looked vaguely like:
>
> /* ------------------------------------------------------
> @@@@ @@ @@@ @@@@@@ @@@@@ @@@@@@@@@@ @@@@@ @@@@@@
> @@@@@@@@ @@@@ @ @@@@@@@ @@@@@ @@@@@@@@ @@@@@@@@
> ------------------------------------------------------ */
<snip>
My first thought when I saw all those "at" signs was, "My god, he's
trying to display EBCDIC code on an ASCII terminal!" (In EBCDIC
a space is 0x40.)
>He must have had a non-standard COBOL compiler to accept such code.
>Of course, the running joke about COBOL was "Standards are nice,
>especially when you have so many to choose from," but I never saw one
>that would accept lowercase. (I hear tell most PC versions do, now.
We ported a bunch of mainframe COBOL programs to Unix. I think the
MicroFocus compiler, which made the process relatively painless,
accepted lower case.
>Ugh. Hurts my brain to even think about it. Not the lowercase. COBOL
>on a PC. Why?)
By PC I presume you mean "personal computer", not "Politically
Correct computer". Indeed, Nevada COBOL implemented a surprisingly
large subset on CP/M systems.
Chris Hedley
> are mistaken about the language? The programmer used much too
> much vertical space IMNSHO.
That brings back bad memories. On one project, some of the guys with
maximised xterms with tiny fonts misused the extra space to create
extremely sparse code; I'd often see monstrosities like:
temp1 = fred( thing,
another ) ;
if ( NULL == temp1 )
{
dosomething () ;
}
else
{
something_else () ;
}
Completely hideous at the best of times, but even worse when I only
had an 80x24 screen to work on. Sigh, a screen's worth of text for
something that should fit on two lines.
Chris.
Chris Hedley
> We can attribute at least the first part of the quote to Bill
> Clinton.
I thought it was Mr "Nudge Nudge, Wink Wink" when asked if he was
trying to insinuate something...
Chris.
jmfb...@aol.com
I hate that even on a listing. I'd always have to take out
my straight-edge and read line by line (an exercise that
always reminded me of being forced to read Dick and Jane
books when my reading skills were already 5 grades ahead).
/BAH
Subtract a hundred and four for e-mail.
Michael Wojcik
In article <051220011259497950%huns...@mac.com>, Ron Hunsinger <huns...@mac.com> writes:
> He must have had a non-standard COBOL compiler to accept such code. Of
> course, the running joke about COBOL was "Standards are nice,
> especially when you have so many to choose from," but I never saw one
> that would accept lowercase. (I hear tell most PC versions do, now.
Indeed they do, along with all kinds of wacky modern COBOL features,
like the OO extensions.
> Ugh. Hurts my brain to even think about it. Not the lowercase. COBOL on
> a PC. Why?)
Two reasons: offloading development from a less-convenient platform,
and letting all those COBOL programmers develop apps for Windows and
Unix. There are a *lot* of COBOL programmers. They're a resource;
someone will find a way to use it.
--
Michael Wojcik michael...@microfocus.com
Comms Development, Micro Focus
Department of English, Miami University
Every allegiance to some community eventually involves such a fetish,
which functions as the disavowal of its founding crime: is not 'America'
the fetish of an infinitely open space enabling every individual to
pursue happiness in his or her own way? -- Slavoj Zizek
Chris Hedley
> I hate that even on a listing. I'd always have to take out
> my straight-edge and read line by line (an exercise that
> always reminded me of being forced to read Dick and Jane
> books when my reading skills were already 5 grades ahead).
I also hate it on listings. I inherited one particular project
that was written in that style, which was incomprehensible on a
screen so I printed it off in search of enlightenment, but it was
still incomprehensible. So in the end I decided to reformat it,
but decided if I was going to go to the trouble of effectively
rewriting the whole thing, I may as well do it from scratch; that
not only made the code look a whole lot nicer, but got rid of the
multitude of bugs that it was plagued with into the bargain. I'm
not going to claim that my code's perfect, but it's a definite
improvement over the likes of my example.
As for reading it with a ruler, I always preferred the "free-form"
type of output. Our lineprinters were usually loaded with ruled
paper, but I'd request that if no blank stuff was available, the
paper was to be loaded back-to-front to hide the lines.
Chris.
jrla...@shell.golden.net
Michael Wojcik <mwo...@newsguy.com> wrote:
>
>In article <051220011259497950%huns...@mac.com>, Ron Hunsinger <huns...@mac.com> writes:
>> He must have had a non-standard COBOL compiler to accept such code. Of
>> course, the running joke about COBOL was "Standards are nice,
>> especially when you have so many to choose from," but I never saw one
>> that would accept lowercase. (I hear tell most PC versions do, now.
>
>Indeed they do, along with all kinds of wacky modern COBOL features,
>like the OO extensions.
The infamous Cobol++? They never let me get that far. I was always stuck
working in real-time Cobol, Cobol-RT.
--
john R. Latala
jrla...@golden.net
glen herrmannsfeldt
> COBOL on anything revolts me. However, an outfit called MicroFocus
> made a whack of cash with their COBOL and /360 assembler PC package.
> Once upon a time, I had to convert a late 60's typesetting assembler
> program to run on a PC using their product. The company is defunct.
Note also that COBOL was one of the first languages to have a
compiler to generate JVM (Java Virtual Machine) code.
One of the last places I would try to run COBOL, but then I never
tried anywhere else, either. Though I do have the
OS/360 COBOL U compiler that I could try running.
-- glen
Eugene Miya
John Carlyle-Clarke <joh...@nospam.europlacer.co.uk> wrote:
>Tron?
The movie (Whitney-Demo with Disney) or the operating system?
Eugene Miya
Tim McCaffrey <t...@spamfilter.asns.tr.unisys.com> wrote:
>In article <3c0d4e69$1...@news.ucsc.edu>, eug...@cse.ucsc.edu says...
>>What do *you* think a Cray looks like?
>>
>Looking at from above, the look like a C (the movie came out about when the
>X/MP was the most known Cray, IIRC).
The IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights is a C shaped
building, I have always wondered whether this was omage to Seymour.
Nice of them. 8^)
The C shape largely disppeared after the Cray-2 (1985). Larger Y-MPs were
barely C shaped, but smaller ones completely abandoned it. The Ys (CRI)
cylinders, and the 3 (CCC) was an octagon (their last logo) for one
quadrant. The 4 was going to be NeXT cube shaped.
None of this necessarily holds for "specials." I'd bet that most
"specials" were basically rectangular boxes.
Despite the fact that the 7600 was also arguably blocky C shaped,
I think that were Cray alive, he would smirk and think that some people
got fixated by the physical packaging. To me the coolest thing working
on these architectures is their "cleanness." They have no features for
"economics" sake or software producivity to help compiler writers, etc.
It's a raw speed engine. If you read an address, you could practically
ID which memory quadrant, which memory bank, board, and chip that
address is; no indirection, no virtual memory, almost no caches,
none of that stuff. And that gets reflected in the physical layout of
the machine.
What you are seeing is the transition from discrete components to
greater and greater scale integration.
I think, were he alive, he'd appreciate your early sense of aesthetics,
but he has moved on to other things which he would rather be appreciated for.
>>>Hmm, they may have also appeared in "Brain Storm" (Natalie Wood's last
>movie).
>>
>>Where?
>>
>Good question. I'm not sure, I know there were several different computer
>room sets (pretty realistic, actually). It just seems like a Cray *should*
>have been there, somewhere.
Kind of a neat movie. I need to get a copy one of these days.
I did purchase a recumbent bike which reminded me of the beginning.
That was more of a film about labs and scientific discovery and VR.
Brian Boutel
Cobol++? Wasn't it called ADD ONE TO COBOL ?
--brian
Charles Richmond
a small UNIX script to deflate all the extra white space from such
a listing.
Chris Hedley
> I've seen copiler-generated assembly like this from GNU C. I had
> a small UNIX script to deflate all the extra white space from such
> a listing.
Compiler or preprocessor output I can forgive: nicely formatted code
isn't a priority, and if it's going to be recorded for posterity, one
can claim ownership and pipe it through a reformatter (I used to use
cb -s -j on the old sysV boxes, which did a reasonable job) Problem
with other people's code is that changing the original author's
style can cause more problems than it fixes, and it's a headache
either way...
Chris.
Brian {Hamilton Kelly}
mwo...@newsguy.com "Michael Wojcik" writes:
> Two reasons: offloading development from a less-convenient platform,
> and letting all those COBOL programmers develop apps for Windows and
> Unix. There are a *lot* of COBOL programmers. They're a resource;
> someone will find a way to use it.
On which score, is there any truth in the story I heard some twenty or so
years ago that the annual cost of *maintaining* (note: not developing
anew) the many COBOL programs that exist world-wide exceeds the GDP of
Switzerland?
--
Brian {Hamilton Kelly} b...@dsl.co.uk
"We have gone from a world of concentrated knowledge and wisdom to one of
distributed ignorance. And we know and understand less while being incr-
easingly capable." Prof. Peter Cochrane, formerly of BT Labs
Heinz W. Wiggeshoff
>
> The secondary question being: was that too much, too little or just
> enough?
>
> Umm...
>
> For the journalists'[1] supplementary, please compare the cost of
> maintaining all the world's Visual BASIC programs to the Gross
> Domestic Product of Nigeria. Discuss your reasons.
...
Nigeria produces lots of oil. Swiss chocolates and Swatches are
incidental to life as I know it.
jrla...@shell.golden.net
Chris Hedley <c...@ieya.co.REMOVE_THIS.uk> wrote:
>
>Compiler or preprocessor output I can forgive: nicely formatted code
>isn't a priority, and if it's going to be recorded for posterity, one
>can claim ownership and pipe it through a reformatter (I used to use
>cb -s -j on the old sysV boxes, which did a reasonable job) Problem
>with other people's code is that changing the original author's
>style can cause more problems than it fixes, and it's a headache
>either way...
This has always been a pet peeve of mine but I think it's especially true
these days given the computing power we have access to. I see no reason to
store source code as raw ASCII text. Why not make it the parse tree or
other some such useful thing? When you fire up an editor it converts it
back into pretty ASCII (and in your personal formatting style) for you to
peruse and play with. Then when you finally get around to saving it the
editor can convert it back into something useful and without any obvious
or stupid syntax errors. Language sensitive editors aren't anything new. I
used one on a VAX/VMS system some mumble years ago.
jrla...@shell.golden.net
Giles Todd <g...@at-dot.org> wrote:
>For the journalists'[1] supplementary, please compare the cost of
>maintaining all the world's Visual BASIC programs to the Gross
>Domestic Product of Nigeria. Discuss your reasons. Please do not try
>to write on both sides of the paper at once because that may make baby
>Rupert cry.
Do we use the Nigerian GDP before or after we've gotten our cut from the
finance minister (or whoever it is running the Nigerian scam)?
Edward Franks
[Snip]
> That brings back bad memories. On one project, some of the guys with
> maximised xterms with tiny fonts misused the extra space to create
> extremely sparse code; I'd often see monstrosities like:
>
> temp1 = fred( thing,
> another ) ;
>
>
> if ( NULL == temp1 )
>
> {
>
> dosomething () ;
>
> }
>
> else
>
> {
>
> something_else () ;
>
> }
>
> Completely hideous at the best of times, but even worse when I only
> had an 80x24 screen to work on. Sigh, a screen's worth of text for
> something that should fit on two lines.
I'd rather have too much whitespace than someone who strived for
this coding style (from the annual IOCCC)
<http://www.ioccc.org/1986/holloway.c>.
My mind has an easier time of suppressing extra whitespace than
with adding it in when it isn't there. Too many flashbacks to horrid
versions of Basic on the early micros. ;-)
--
Edward Franks
<xy...@kc.rr.com>
Charles Richmond
but I feel much less forgiving if I need to *look* at the assembly
code that is output. Then I will need to do a fix up on it. But as
you said, once I am done with it, the assembly goes in the trash.
No "changing the original author's style" headaches for this...
Charles Richmond
>
> In article <9uo57...@enews3.newsguy.com>
> mwo...@newsguy.com "Michael Wojcik" writes:
>
> > Two reasons: offloading development from a less-convenient platform,
> > and letting all those COBOL programmers develop apps for Windows and
> > Unix. There are a *lot* of COBOL programmers. They're a resource;
> > someone will find a way to use it.
>
> On which score, is there any truth in the story I heard some twenty or so
> years ago that the annual cost of *maintaining* (note: not developing
> anew) the many COBOL programs that exist world-wide exceeds the GDP of
> Switzerland?
>
there, the companies do *not* even have the source code. This
complicates the maintenance considerably IMHO. I have also
heard that 70% of all programming work is maintenance work.
So it seems that if you get to actually develop a new application,
that is a luxury of sorts...
CBFalconer
>
... snip ...
> >
> The story I heard was that for 80% of the COBOL programs out
> there, the companies do *not* even have the source code. This
> complicates the maintenance considerably IMHO. I have also
> heard that 70% of all programming work is maintenance work.
> So it seems that if you get to actually develop a new application,
> that is a luxury of sorts...
Who, in any approximation of their right mind, would *want* to
develop a new application in COBOL? IMNSHO the only statement of
any possible value is "MOVE CORRESPONDING".
Chris Hedley
> My mind has an easier time of suppressing extra whitespace than
> with adding it in when it isn't there. Too many flashbacks to horrid
> versions of Basic on the early micros. ;-)
I had a look and it does indeed bring back nasty memories; in particular,
the magazine listings containing Basic-based machine code loaders, ie
half a dozen lines of semi-intelligable Basic and six billion lines of
DATA statements with lots of numbers... And could I ever get one of them
to work?
Chris.
Nico de Jong
>Charles Richmond wrote:
>>
>... snip ...
>> >
>> The story I heard was that for 80% of the COBOL programs out
>> there, the companies do *not* even have the source code. This
>> heard that 70% of all programming work is maintenance work.
>> So it seems that if you get to actually develop a new application,
>> that is a luxury of sorts...
The problem is more of a political nature, if my experience is anything to
go by.
This year, I had a major consultancy contract with a danish bank.
The coding used in the production programs is rahter like spaghetti. The
group I was in, proposed that we binned the whole system, and wrote a new
one from scratch. This was refused in no uncertain terms, with the "reason"
that nobody of the users wanted to pay for the development work.
Of course, it didnt matter that just keeping the old systems alive, had a
price too (about 6 men full time ! ), which they didnt object paying.
I have seen with my own eyes, that the production flow contained programs
writing "blind" files, i.e. files used nowhere. Blind input files were also
regular occurrences.
Most of the programs were rather old; many had comments indicating that
rectifications/additions were made as early as 1982. Comments older then
that, have been removed at some unspecified time.
I found a PL/I program, just copying and reblocking 1 to 4 inputfiles to 1
output file. There were some 50 statements, but no less then 9 GOTO's
So, if an error occurred somewhere in some old shitty program, the solution
was to repair the error in a new program....
And now I dont wonder anymore why they need some 300 new PL/I
developpers....
Nico
Jay Maynard
>This has always been a pet peeve of mine but I think it's especially true
>these days given the computing power we have access to. I see no reason to
>store source code as raw ASCII text. Why not make it the parse tree or
>other some such useful thing? When you fire up an editor it converts it
>back into pretty ASCII (and in your personal formatting style) for you to
>peruse and play with. Then when you finally get around to saving it the
>editor can convert it back into something useful and without any obvious
>or stupid syntax errors. Language sensitive editors aren't anything new. I
>used one on a VAX/VMS system some mumble years ago.
Because editors and compilers are not the only things that work with program
source code. You don't have to go as far as a symbolic debugger; something
as simple as a grep is highly useful, too.
A language system that doesn't store program source as pure ASCII - easily
searchable, manageable, manipulatable ASCII - is a language system I'll have
nothing to do with.
jmfb...@aol.com
CBFalconer <cbfal...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>Charles Richmond wrote:
>>
>.... snip ...
>> >
>> The story I heard was that for 80% of the COBOL programs out
>> there, the companies do *not* even have the source code. This
>> complicates the maintenance considerably IMHO. I have also
>> heard that 70% of all programming work is maintenance work.
>> So it seems that if you get to actually develop a new application,
>> that is a luxury of sorts...
>
>Who, in any approximation of their right mind, would *want* to
>develop a new application in COBOL? IMNSHO the only statement of
>any possible value is "MOVE CORRESPONDING".
>
jmfb...@aol.com
>In article <f2tou9...@teabag.cbhnet>,
>Chris Hedley <c...@ieya.co.REMOVE_THIS.uk> wrote:
>>
>>Compiler or preprocessor output I can forgive: nicely formatted code
>>isn't a priority, and if it's going to be recorded for posterity, one
>>can claim ownership and pipe it through a reformatter (I used to use
>>cb -s -j on the old sysV boxes, which did a reasonable job) Problem
>>with other people's code is that changing the original author's
>>style can cause more problems than it fixes, and it's a headache
>>either way...
>
>This has always been a pet peeve of mine but I think it's especially true
>these days given the computing power we have access to. I see no reason to
>store source code as raw ASCII text.
Oh, this is not only a hot button, it's a fucking HOT BUTTON.
Look at the last three years worth of posts on alt.sys.pdp10
and you'll discover why ASCII is absolutely necessary. I'm
assuming you can extrapolate. VMS is going to have enormous
problems because the ASCII bits were not a general distribution.
ASCII still happens to be a _common_ bit standard. I'm waiting
for Misoft to try to change that.
> ..Why not make it the parse tree or
>other some such useful thing? When you fire up an editor it converts it
>back into pretty ASCII (and in your personal formatting style) for you to
>peruse and play with.
Which editor using which operating system on which hardware? Not
only do you have to reproduce the software, you have to have
working old hardware that can't be fixed, can't be produced, and
can't be found.
You people who are relying on some kind of binary flavor of
relocatables are producing a major problem that will cause
the computing world to hit a brick wall in a decade (I hope
it's a decade and not sooner).
> ...Then when you finally get around to saving it the
>editor can convert it back into something useful and without any obvious
>or stupid syntax errors. Language sensitive editors aren't anything new. I
>used one on a VAX/VMS system some mumble years ago.
Again, you have to have bit for bit replacement of that system if
you ever need to access old data (here old data includes old
relocatables).
CBFalconer
and Byte came up with printbytes, or something like that, for
lightpen scannable code.
PLZI
"Michael Wojcik" <mwo...@newsguy.com> wrote in message
news:9uo57...@enews3.newsguy.com...
>
>
> Two reasons: offloading development from a less-convenient platform,
> and letting all those COBOL programmers develop apps for Windows and
> Unix. There are a *lot* of COBOL programmers. They're a resource;
> someone will find a way to use it.
How about ... web server application development?
Keep your coffee cups and cola bottles at a good distance when you open the
link above.
Now, think of it. A flashy web page, and there on the bottom of the page
stands "This page powered by ...". Should cause a few meltdowns here and
there, especially amongst the oh-so-hip and cool perl/java -people.
- PLZI
jmfb...@aol.com
"Nico de Jong" <ni...@farumdata.dk> wrote:
>CBFalconer skrev i meddelelsen <3C108104...@yahoo.com>...
>>Charles Richmond wrote:
>>>
>>... snip ...
>>> >
>>> The story I heard was that for 80% of the COBOL programs out
>>> there, the companies do *not* even have the source code. This
>>> I have also
>>> heard that 70% of all programming work is maintenance work.
>>> So it seems that if you get to actually develop a new application,
>>> that is a luxury of sorts...
>
>
>The problem is more of a political nature, if my experience is anything to
>go by.
>This year, I had a major consultancy contract with a danish bank.
>The coding used in the production programs is rahter like spaghetti. The
>group I was in, proposed that we binned the whole system, and wrote a new
>one from scratch. This was refused in no uncertain terms, with the
"reason"
>that nobody of the users wanted to pay for the development work.
That word development scares the hell out of people. I'm beginning
to think that they interpret it as a fly-by-night process rather
than a very structured, very controlled, and extremely cautious
procedure. Where in the world did people get such a bad impression?
>Of course, it didnt matter that just keeping the old systems alive, had a
>price too (about 6 men full time ! ), which they didnt object paying.
>
>I have seen with my own eyes, that the production flow contained programs
>writing "blind" files, i.e. files used nowhere. Blind
>input files were also regular occurrences.
>Most of the programs were rather old; many had comments indicating that
>rectifications/additions were made as early as 1982. Comments older then
>that, have been removed at some unspecified time.
>I found a PL/I program, just copying and reblocking 1 to 4 inputfiles to 1
>output file. There were some 50 statements, but no less then 9 GOTO's
>So, if an error occurred somewhere in some old shitty program,
>the solution was to repair the error in a new program....
>
>And now I dont wonder anymore why they need some 300 new PL/I
>developpers....
<grin> I immediately had a "flow chart" of the product's
evolution.
Repeat n, <"Hey, Charlie! When I put in this extra step
of writing a scratch file, the run works." "OK, leave it
in and we'll look at it later after we get this week's payroll
done." >
jmfb...@aol.com
c...@ieya.co.REMOVE_THIS.uk (Chris Hedley) wrote:
>According to <jmfb...@aol.com>:
>> I hate that even on a listing. I'd always have to take out
>> my straight-edge and read line by line (an exercise that
>> always reminded me of being forced to read Dick and Jane
>> books when my reading skills were already 5 grades ahead).
>
>I also hate it on listings. I inherited one particular project
>that was written in that style, which was incomprehensible on a
>screen so I printed it off in search of enlightenment, but it was
>still incomprehensible. So in the end I decided to reformat it,
>but decided if I was going to go to the trouble of effectively
>rewriting the whole thing, I may as well do it from scratch; that
>not only made the code look a whole lot nicer, but got rid of the
>multitude of bugs that it was plagued with into the bargain. I'm
>not going to claim that my code's perfect, but it's a definite
>improvement over the likes of my example.
You know, every time you guys say that you rewrote something,
I always wonder how you knew the functionality of the code.
Presumedly, the specs for that code were the first sources to
disappear. I have visions of some programmer in the deep dark
past tweaking the code with some other code to implement a
request that had under-the-table conditions. :-)
>As for reading it with a ruler, I always preferred the "free-form"
>type of output. Our lineprinters were usually loaded with ruled
>paper, but I'd request that if no blank stuff was available, the
>paper was to be loaded back-to-front to hide the lines.
I just looked at my listings, ours had very light lines on both
sides. They look grey to me now..they may have started out
as green. Funny, I never noticed them.
Heinz W. Wiggeshoff
>
...
> developpers....
I'm on my way. What's the address?
Roland Hutchinson
<janne....@eisikanautaa.sonera.com>wrote:
> "Michael Wojcik" <mwo...@newsguy.com> wrote in message
> news:9uo57...@enews3.newsguy.com...
>>
>> There are a *lot* of COBOL programmers. They're a resource;
>> someone will find a way to use it.
>
> How about ... web server application development?
>
> http://www.deskware.com
I like the cute little dinosaur. I wonder if the creature has a name?
Plays nicely with Tux as well, apparently...
--
Roland Hutchinson Will play viola da gamba for food.
NB mail to rolands....@usa.net is heavily filtered to remove
spam. If your message looks like spam I may not see it.
Eric Smith
> Cobol++? Wasn't it called ADD ONE TO COBOL ?
ISTR that the full name is ADD ONE TO COBOL GIVING BIG-PILE-OF-POO.
Chris Hedley
> You know, every time you guys say that you rewrote something,
> I always wonder how you knew the functionality of the code.
> Presumedly, the specs for that code were the first sources to
> disappear. I have visions of some programmer in the deep dark
> past tweaking the code with some other code to implement a
> request that had under-the-table conditions. :-)
I knew more-or-less what it was supposed to be doing, if not the
method of how it was going about it if it's written in a suitably
poor/obscure manner, and generally had the specs of what is was
supposed to be interfacing with. Usually the bits that got
rewritten were small pieces of a much larger jigsaw puzzle, so
individual parts weren't too much of a headache to completely
rewrite and even redesign if necessary.
> I just looked at my listings, ours had very light lines on both
> sides. They look grey to me now..they may have started out
> as green. Funny, I never noticed them.
I've seen various types: some have grey, green, blue etc shading
across alternate lines, others have about half a dozen narrow
lines of whatever colour instead; there're quite a few types out
there to confuse the purchasing departments!
Chris.
Roland Hutchinson
<br...@boutel.co.nz>wrote:
> Cobol++? Wasn't it called ADD ONE TO COBOL ?
A quick googleation (and memories of old theads in this very
newsgroup) reveals several variants, including:
ADD ONE TO COBOL
ADD ONE TO COBOL GIVING COBOL
Cobol++
TurboCobol++
VisualCobol++
Object-Oriented Cobol
Object Cobol
Cobol 2002
It is left as an exercise for the reader to determine which, if any,
of the above languages have actually been defined, implemented, or
sold as products.
jrla...@shell.golden.net
batch all the binary source code into a pretty printer and grep to your
hearts content.
Jim Thomas
PLZI> "Michael Wojcik" <mwo...@newsguy.com> wrote in message
PLZI> news:9uo57...@enews3.newsguy.com...
>>
>>
>> Two reasons: offloading development from a less-convenient platform,
>> and letting all those COBOL programmers develop apps for Windows and
>> Unix. There are a *lot* of COBOL programmers. They're a resource;
>> someone will find a way to use it.
PLZI> How about ... web server application development?
PLZI> http://www.deskware.com
Well, does Java(tm) do money fields as well as Cobol? Does perl(tm)? Is
there anything newer than Cobol (other than data base languages) that does
do money right?
Jim
Edward Franks
[Snip]
> Well, does Java(tm) do money fields as well as Cobol? Does perl(tm)? Is
> there anything newer than Cobol (other than data base languages) that does
> do money right?
Turbo Pascal 3 (circa 1986)? It has a version of the compiler that
included BCD reals just for monetary amounts.
Visual Basic? It has a currency data type.
I imagine you could find a library that dealt with currency for the
C family of languages.
--
Edward Franks
<xy...@kc.rr.com>
Joshua Hesse
:>
:>This has always been a pet peeve of mine but I think it's especially true
:>these days given the computing power we have access to. I see no reason to
:>store source code as raw ASCII text.
:ASCII still happens to be a _common_ bit standard. I'm waiting
:for Misoft to try to change that.
As in the GW-BASIC's default tokenized format? (at least the version that
shipped with MS-DOS 4.01. Donno about others...)
-Josh
--
"I have also mastered pomposity, even if I do say so myself." -Kryten
UNL Anime Club: http://www.unl.edu/otaku
"I'd be proud to vote for tax increases... You bet I would." -Dick Gephardt
Tramm Hudson
Chris Hedley <c...@ieya.co.REMOVE_THIS.uk> wrote:
> ... it does indeed bring back nasty memories; in particular,
> the magazine listings containing Basic-based machine code loaders, ie
> half a dozen lines of semi-intelligable Basic and six billion lines of
> DATA statements with lots of numbers... And could I ever get one of them
> to work?
After a few years of typing those in, COMPUTE magazine came up with
a program that would read a line of text, compute a checksum for it
and store it into program memory. You could then compare the checksum
against the four hex digits printed next to the line.
So before typing in any of the larger programs you would key in the
shorter (~60 line) read, hash, store routine and run it to aid with
the input of the larger program.
I was fairly fast with my hex-keypad as a result. But the downside
was that it did not teach anything about programming -- I learned much
of coding styles and design from typing in the long BASIC programs
rather than the assembled versions.
The experience also taught me to enjoy reading code to learn how it
works. That's another thing that I would like to see return to
programming curriculums.
Trammell
--
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Wiliam Hamblen
> As in the GW-BASIC's default tokenized format? (at least the version that
> shipped with MS-DOS 4.01. Donno about others...)
by default. If you wanted a listing you typed LIST.
Heinz W. Wiggeshoff
>
> Well, does Java(tm) do money fields as well as Cobol? Does perl(tm)? Is
> there anything newer than Cobol (other than data base languages) that does
> do money right?
PL/I - in sterling too!
Larry Anderson
"Heinz W. Wiggeshoff" wrote:
>
> Ron Hunsinger (huns...@mac.com) writes:
> >
> ...
> > He must have had a non-standard COBOL compiler to accept such code. Of
> > course, the running joke about COBOL was "Standards are nice,
> > especially when you have so many to choose from," but I never saw one
> > that would accept lowercase. (I hear tell most PC versions do, now.
> > Ugh. Hurts my brain to even think about it. Not the lowercase. COBOL on
> > a PC. Why?)
>
> COBOL on anything revolts me. However, an outfit called MicroFocus
> made a whack of cash with their COBOL and /360 assembler PC package.
> Once upon a time, I had to convert a late 60's typesetting assembler
> program to run on a PC using their product. The company is defunct.
--
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